The Bird Joy Podcast

This week on the Bird Joy Podcast, Dexter and Jason sit down with Christopher Joe, a farmer, conservationist, birder, and founder of Connecting with Birds and Nature Tours in Alabama.

Chris is a native of Greensboro, Alabama, and the steward of Joe Farm, a 200-acre Black Angus cattle farm in Newbern that has been in his family since the mid-1800s. A graduate of Alabama A&M University with a degree in Agribusiness Management, Chris now serves as a District Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. His life’s work sits at the intersection of land stewardship, conservation, and community.

In a region where Black land ownership has faced generations of intimidation and loss, Chris understands just how sacred land can be. Through birding tours hosted on his family’s private property, he has created a rare and powerful space. A space where people from all walks of life can gather, feel safe, and experience nature through joy and connection.

Joe Farm has become especially known for the breathtaking arrival of Swallow-tailed Kites each year during hay cutting season — a spectacle that draws birders from across the region and opens deeper conversations about access, representation, and belonging in the outdoors.

In this episode, we explore Chris’s childhood roots on the farm, the responsibility of carrying generational legacy, and the challenges of building an ecotourism business in Alabama. We talk about what it means to often be the only Black person in conservation spaces, how the national conversation around race and birding has evolved, and how hosting Christian Cooper and National Geographic on his property shaped his journey.

At its core, this conversation is about more than birds. It’s about legacy. It’s about ownership. It’s about community. And it’s about what becomes possible when people experience nature together.

Plus, stay tuned for a joyful lightning round where Chris shares his favorite bird to photograph, the sound in nature he loves most, and what “Bird Joy” truly means to him.

You can learn more about Christopher Joe and book a tour at Birds and Nature Tours.

Remember — Bird Joy is for everyone, even YOU.

BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin

In Color Birding Club

What happens when fashion, natural history, conservation, and art collide?

In this episode of Bird Joy, we’re joined by New York City’s premier licensed professional taxidermist, Divya Anantharaman, an award-winning artist whose work spans museums, galleries, fashion houses, and natural history institutions. Divya specializes in birds, small mammals, and anatomic anomalies, blending scientific precision with emotional storytelling and symbolic design. Check out her work here.

Divya’s path wasn’t linear. She left the corporate fashion world to pursue her love of natural history, becoming the resident taxidermist at the Morbid Anatomy Museum and building a global following for her taxidermy, skeletal, and entomology displays, as well as jewelry and wearable art rooted in wonder.

Divya shares insights from her feature in the documentary Rearranging Skin, her book Stuffed Animals: A Modern Guide to Taxidermy, and her collaborations with institutions, artists, and conservation groups like NYC Bird Alliance and NYC Plover Project.

At its heart, this conversation explores the human-animal relationship, conservation, legacy, memory, and what becomes possible when science becomes art.

If you’ve ever felt the pull of curiosity toward feathers, form, history, or preservation, this episode is for you.

Science. Style. Wonder. And a whole lot of Bird Joy!

BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin

In Color Birding Club

In this episode, we sit down with Trentön Schulz-Franco, founder of the Special Bird Service Society in Canada. SBS is an outdoor community rooted in Victoria and Vancouver that is redefining what belonging in nature can look like. Special Bird Service centers Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour, as well as 2SLGBTQIA+ folks, creating intentional spaces where people feel safe, seen, and genuinely welcome outdoors.

Our conversation explores the difference between access and belonging, the personal journey that led Trentön to build SBS, and the responsibility outdoor leaders carry when guiding people on colonized land. We talk about healing, joy, storytelling, and the power of community-led spaces to transform our experience of nature. Trentön shares affirming moments from SBS gatherings, the challenges of growth, and what it takes to protect a community’s soul while expanding its reach.

This episode is a reminder that birding and outdoor culture can be places of care, accountability, and connection when community comes first. If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to build a space where people truly belong, this conversation is for you.

BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin

In Color Birding Club